Winter Musings

A friend of mine recently said something to me that I can't get out of my head. She lives in Alaska, near Homer, and she made the comment that she's sick of winter because she can't smell anything. She went on to elaborate that you need heat to smell. She said it's so cold that she can't even smell the ocean. I was so perplexed. This was news to me, and of course I had to verify with Simon, who I run all my questions through. He thought it was funny that I've never noticed that outside has no smell in the winter. But what's also funny, is that I hate the smell of people and animals in the winter when they come in from outside. I don't know what it is, but there's just a smell and I don't like it. So here we go down the rabbit hole of one of my sensory explorations.

I walked Kiki out in the woods the other day, the forest floor blanketed in the most recent snowfall. I was in my boots because I was too lazy to go to the shed to look for my snow shoes. That and it had been a few days since it had snowed, and I was banking on the idea that enough people had been out there snow shoeing and cross country skiing to have cleared me a path. Not only was the path cleared, but so much snow had already melted that it was muddy. It was here that I did my experiment. 

While Kiki was off traipsing through the snow looking for squirrels, I inhaled a large breath in through my nose. Nothing. I couldn't smell anything. I grabbed a handful of snow from the ground and smelled it. Still nothing. I just stood there in amazement, looking around me, in awe of the fact that I have never ever noticed this. Me, who is so sensitive to smell, is completely unaware of the absence of it. It was almost as though I had Covid again, although the only symptom was loss of smell. 

I stood there a little longer, remembering very clearly how these woods smell when there is no snow on the ground and the sun is shining and temperatures are consistently above freezing. Damp earth, trees, decomposing stumps and pine needles, muddy puddles, grass, dirt; even the rocks seem to have a dusty smell about them. In the summer the woods smell warm, with dry dirt, blooming wild flowers, and dry grasses all wrapped in the scent of vanilla and caramel coming off the sides of the ponderosa pines that are exposed to the sun. 

I went for a walk again today, and this time I stayed to the streets that were plowed (the snow shoes and skis were still comfortably nestled in the shed, and once again I was too lazy to retrieve them), including a forest service road that travels deep into the forest to a neighborhood that I have only seen once while out on a long ride on my bike. The road was wet and muddy, and I felt like I was walking through a tunnel of snow. The sun was coming and going, the wind throwing up sheets of grey sparkles. I could smell nothing. I stomped in the mud, I kicked up the snow and nothing stirred my olfactory senses in the slightest. What an odd sensation. What an amazing thing to notice.

As of this writing, the area closest to us (the airport) has gotten 23 inches of snow with a predicted 12 inches more on the way. I've shoveled three times already today, and the minivan is still completely buried. Good thing I had the intuition (aka, midlife crisis) to purchase the 4x4 Xterra last winter so we can safely and comfortably get around. The snow falling off the trees last night was so loud and lasted so long that I wasn't able to fall asleep until after 1am. There's nothing quite like the sound of huge clods of snow falling on the roof of the house. I noticed today that the giant ponderosa across the street is leaning perilously over the road as it struggles to loose itself of the snow clinging to it. I verified (by sight and no official measurements) that if it were to fall on its current trajectory, that it probably would miss our house, but it's still ominous to look out and see it there, swaying in the wind. Once it gets dark I won't have to look at it anymore. Or I could just close the blinds.

Anyway, I'm tucked in for the night with a warm fire cooking away in the woodstove, and plans to have popcorn for supper, as is tradition. Maybe I'll have some apple slices too, just to change things up. Kiki is snuggled up in one of her many pet beds, having given up on the hope of a second dinner. Simon is off to work early so he can pick up two of his coworkers on the way, since both of them were unable to get their cars out of the parking lot this morning after work. What a great guy. :)

This is winter.

"You Didn't Even See Me"

So, I had an interesting interaction with a State Trooper a few weeks ago. I was leaving home, heading into town on our little two-lane road that leads to the freeway. I was stuck behind a slow person, as per usual, just biding my time until I could get on the freeway and leave them in the dust. Coming in the opposite direction about a mile from the freeway was a state trooper. Now, I don't typically notice cops, and Simon will attest to this, but it was broad daylight and there was no one else on the road besides the slow person in front of me, so I noticed when the trooper turned around behind me. The slow person in front of me (henceforth will be known as Blue Guy, since his SUV was blue) who had been going below the speed limit also noticed, and thus slowed down even more. Awesome. So the three of us enter the on-ramp together at a snail's pace towards town. Blue Guy was maybe going 50mph by the time we hit the freeway, where the speed limit is 75mph. There's traffic going the speed limit, and we're going so slow as we integrate into the stream. So I stay behind Blue Guy, wanting the trooper to make the first move to pass, which he does. I keep my eyes forward as he goes by, while also keeping an eye on my speedometer. I am definitely going to pass the Blue Guy, but I don't want to be speeding near a state trooper when I do it. 

So, trooper gets past me, I put on my blinker and get behind him. He's almost right in line with the Blue Guy when he slams on his brakes, which in turn makes me have to slam on my brakes to keep from running into the back of him. There are also other cars around us. We weren't quite at freeway speeds yet, but pretty darn close; too fast for random slamming of the brakes. The trooper aggressively swerves in behind the Blue Guy, with what I think is the intention to pull him over. I'm obviously shaken up by this, as people don't just slam on their brakes and swerve around on the freeway like that. But he's a cop, so I figure he has his reasons and decide I want to make myself scarce and give him some space to do whatever it is he's going to do. I glance at my speedometer once again to ensure that I'm not speeding, and continue up the left-hand lane. I should mention that none of us are going 75mph at this point, we're all going 60-ish due to the Blue Guy being slow and the trooper slamming on his brakes. There was a little voice in the back of my head saying "Never pass a cop," but I ignored it because I wasn't even close to speeding, I was in my lane, driving with both hands on the wheel. There was no reason whatsoever that I could discern that should prevent me from continuing on my way. As I pull up next to the trooper, he rolls down his window and mean mugs me as I go by. Having just narrowly avoided rear-ending him when he slammed on his brakes, I'm visibly confused, and I raise a hand up in a "what's going on?" gesture. He immediately swings into the left lane behind me and turns on the cherries.

So I pull over. I roll down my passenger side window as he approaches, and I keep my hands on the steering wheel where he can see them. "Do you know why I pulled you over?" he says. "No, I honestly don't." I say. He then says, "I went by you, and you didn't even see me. You were looking down. Were you playing on your phone?" Now, there's no way this man could know this about me, but I am a stickler about not using my phone when I'm driving. I am very aware of how distracting it is, and I want to remain focused on the road while I'm driving. Also, being behind people on the road who are playing on their phones is so incredibly annoying...they speed up, they slow down, they're all over the road...it's so unsafe, and I don't want to be that person. I don't tell him all that, of course, but what I do tell him is that my phone is zipped up in my purse and that I never play with my phone when I'm driving. Again, he says, "Well, you were looking down and you didn't even see me, your eyes weren't on the road. What were you looking at?" At this point I'm so confused that I'm looking around the car, looking at my lap, at the passenger seat, the cup holders, wondering what I could have been looking at. There's literally nothing. No coffee cup, no loose items, my purse is there on the passenger seat. I throw up my hands in frustration, "I don't know, the speedometer? Also, I definitely saw you behind me on Mountainaire Road, so I knew you were there." Acknowledging where and when I had initially seen him seemed to satisfy him, as he then asked for my license, took a quick look at it, and told me to have a nice day. I sat there for a moment after he had pulled back onto the freeway, wondering what in the heck had just transpired. 

On one hand, I guess I'm glad that cops are pulling people over for suspicion of using their phones while driving. We've all been behind those motorists that are clearly distracted, phones or otherwise, and they represent a major safety issue at highway speeds. But...had I actually been playing on my phone, I could have tossed it in my purse in seconds between the time it took me to pull over and for him to get to my window. If I had actually been playing on my phone, was he hoping that I would just confess? He obviously couldn't see whether or not I had a phone in my hand or my lap when I went by him, he just suspected, based on his observation that I was 'looking down.' My phone was no where in sight when he approached my window, and he didn't ask me to show him where it was, so is this some weird sort of honesty policy kind of thing? Who's really going to incriminate themselves over something like this? Or is suspicion of playing on one's phone now just the lowest common denominator to pull people over at random? Did he pull me over simply because I passed him? But then, I wouldn't have passed him at all if he hadn't slammed on his brakes and gotten back in the right-hand lane, so clearly he had intended to pull me over before I passed him. What's also kind of funny, is that he made a comment about seeing me wearing my 'big mittens' as he went by, because I have big puffy down mittens that are glorious on cold mornings; how in the world is someone supposed to play on their phone while wearing mittens like that? Also, since he could see the mittens, he could clearly see that both my hands were on the wheel and not messing around with something in my lap or on the seat. 

The thing I just keep going back to is how he kept saying, "You never even saw me." Like, is there some way that we as motorists are supposed to interact with cops on the road so they know that we know they're there? A wave, a thumbs up, or a salute of some sort? Wouldn't that be considered a distraction? I felt like it was incredibly presumptuous of this guy to tell me what I did or didn't see, as there's no way for him to know what I was and wasn't looking at. As stated earlier, I see cops far less often than Simon, even when they're hiding in plain sight. It's not that I'm unobservant, per se, but more that when I'm driving I tend to look straight ahead and pay attention to the road and the cars in front of and around me; I pay scant attention to ditches and medians because that's not where I'm going. I don't know if that's good, bad, or otherwise, but that's how I drive. If the expectation is that I not only have to notice cops but also acknowledge them as well, that's just another distraction taking my eyes and attention off the road in front of me. I guess I just don't know what to make of this, to be honest. Maybe there's nothing to be made of it. Maybe this guy was just a weirdo. Maybe I should have made note of his name and followed up about this interaction, because something about it just isn't sitting right. At the end of the day, it's probably nothing. 

Anyway, I don't mean for this to sound disparaging toward cops, because I do support the police and I've always appreciated them every single time that I've needed them. They put their lives on the line in more ways than we as regular civilians could ever know. Sometimes I just have to scratch my head over these traffic stops. Moral of the story, if there is one: don't pass a cop, no matter what, because they might just find a reason to pull you over for it.

Remembering Carol

Carol and me 

It's taken me a long time to write this post, because I so desperately needed it to be perfect. There was a lot of personal debriefing that took place surrounding the death of my aunt Carol, because her death was the first of my family and friends in which I had been personally involved. Having helped numerous patients achieve comfortable deaths throughout my 21-year nursing career, I went into Carol's death assuming that it would feel much the same. I don't know why I thought that. It was absolutely nothing like the deaths of my patients, for a variety of reasons that I won't get into during this post, but I guess the easiest way to sum it up is that you don't know what you don't know until you're learning the lesson. Even though it was a difficult lesson, I'm so grateful that Carol trusted me to be there for her for her last request, which was to have a comfortable death in her sleep.  

On July 20th of this year, my aunt Carol peacefully passed away in her home, with her daughter Tiffany, her son Clint, her granddaughter Katrina, and me nearby. Carol had been diagnosed with aggressive terminal lung cancer in May, and had chosen not to treat it. That's all I'm going to say about that right now, as the story of her death is a story for another time, or maybe a story that I keep for myself. This post is about her life, and what an interesting life she had! 

Carol and her daughter Tiffany, wearing purple for Pancreatic Cancer Awareness. Carol's husband Bob passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2016.

Carol was born April 17, 1945 in New Ulm, MN. If you haven't been, New Ulm is a super cute little town in south central Minnesota that has always had a large Germanic population. Carol grew up on a farm with her siblings Dee, Marie, Paul, Perry, and Philip. Their last name is Ziegenhagen, which doesn't get much more German than that!

Bob and Carol on their wedding day 1968

On somewhat of a whim, Carol up and moved to Colorado Springs after high school, which is incredible given the times (1960's) and the fact that small-town women from rural Minnesota weren't exactly striking out on their own like that in those days. Makes her somewhat of a kindred spirit for me, and makes me love her all the more for being a pioneering, independent woman. While she was in Colorado Springs, she met my uncle Bob, who was in the Air Force. Apparently the story goes that there were a couple gals from Russia living in Colorado at the time, who happened to know both Bob and Carol. The gals decided that these two Minnesotans ought to be together, and introduced them. They were married in November of 1968 in Oklahoma. As befits the life of a military wife, Carol lived all over the country as Bob was reassigned to different bases. They were living in Kansas when their son Clint was born in 1972. After Kansas, they moved to a tiny little Athabaskan village along the Yukon River called Galena, Alaska, where Carol traded goods from the lower 48 for real rabbit fur mukluks for her family. After Alaska they spent some time in Minnesota, then Texas, then Illinois, then a 15-month road trip across the entire United States to celebrate Bob's retirement from the Air Force, then back to San Angelo, Texas where they'd lived since Bob retired. In December of 1985, just days before Christmas in San Angelo, Bob and Carol welcomed their daughter Tiffany into the world. Carol's husband Bob passed away in February of 2016 of pancreatic cancer.

Carol with son Clint, son-in-law Hiram, granddaughter Katrina, Angel (the dog), and daughter Tiffany

Bob and Carol were quite the couple. Bob was a big man with a shock of unruly hair and a big bushy beard, frequently towering over everyone in the room. Not only was he physically big, but he had a big presence about him as well. During his quiet moments, which were often, you could always tell he was contemplating something. What Bob said, usually went...except for Carol. Carol was about my size, maybe even smaller, but she stood up to Bob like you wouldn't believe. It was actually kind of funny to watch, to be honest. I certainly was never going to put Bob in his place, but she didn't hesitate. Where Bob could be aloof and quiet, Carol was warm hugs and conversation filled with laughter. Carol always wanted to be right in the thick of it, and her presence made every gathering just that much better. Carol loved nothing more than a good Ellringer gathering. The Ellringers are my huge, loud, crazy-in-a-mostly-good-way family on my mom's side. A typical gathering is usually about 25-50 people and it's always an experience. There is usually lots of food, lots of booze, lots of card playing, lots of children and usually some dogs running around, and lots of shouting, as everyone struggles to be heard above the eating, drinking, cards, children, and dogs; hearing loss has not improved the volume issues. It's a hoot. I feel like a lot of the people who have married into the family are immediately overwhelmed by the boisterous Ellringers (Simon can attest to this fact), but Carol never seemed to bat an eye. She got right into the melee like she'd been there all along. We will be having a memorial for her next summer, and while the day will be all about celebrating her and what she meant to all of us, her absence will be heavy.

Carol in one of her many puffy coats

I personally got to know Carol really well during the summers that she and Bob came up to Minnesota to stay with my parents in an effort to escape the heat of west Texas. Even during the heat waves and humidity of the Minnesota summers, Carol was never far from her puffy jacket. If she forgot to pack a puffy jacket (a rarity), she was usually able to get a screaming deal on a new one because who buys puffy jackets in Minnesota in the summer? Carol. Carol does. I remember one year she came up with an ankle-length puffy jacket, and she definitely wore it. She would wear that puffy jacket on the deck in the morning while she had her morning coffee and cigarette. She would usually take it off at some point during the day, but as soon as the sun started getting low in the sky, out came the jacket. It was always funny to us that this woman who was born and raised in Minnesota, who had also lived in Alaska, moved to Texas and somehow found 90 degrees with 80% humidity to be cold. It was rare to see Carol in short sleeves, and rarer still to see her in a tank top. Now that I'm thinking about it, I don't think I ever saw her in a tank top or even shorts. 

Me wearing a dress that Carol had made

Carol was an amazing practical seamstress. It was funny, when I was in Texas over the summer helping her get dressed, I noticed that she had sewn shut the button plackets on all of her pajama shirts. And well, why not? I certainly have never buttoned up the front of my own pajama top, I just pull it over my head. As did she, and she went one step further by making sure the placket always stayed closed by sewing it shut. Brilliant. She made clothes, she made blankets, she hemmed pants, she mended holes and tears, she made bumpers for her grandbabies' cribs. I remember her joking with me years ago that the reason she had to mend the seats of men's pants so often is because they fart too much. I about died. I had asked her a few years ago to show me how to use a sewing machine; she lost me at loading the bobbin...hahaha! It's not that she wasn't a good teacher, it's that I'm a terrible student, and sewing is hard. It's an art honed over time that takes patience and a willingness to not be good at it for a while. I still don't know how to sew, but maybe that's something to put on my list of things to honor Carol for this year. Or next year. Next year might be a good time to start a new hobby 

Carol was always happy to cook for the Ellringer Clan

When I think about Carol, what comes to mind the most is how she was everyone's biggest champion. There was no feat too big or too small that she wasn't proud of. If she knew about anyone's accomplishments, there was no doubt she would talk about them to all who would listen. Her son Clint has had a long career in the Navy, her daughter Tiffany is about the kindest person you will ever meet. Her grandchildren are sweet, kind, and compassionate, and were the best part of her day no matter what kind of a day she was having. When I went to Texas to help her this summer, Carol wasted no time telling everyone that I was her niece from Arizona who was a nurse. The same went for Simon. Not that she had ever seen us in action in a hospital setting, but to Carol we were the best nurses there ever were.

Carol loved visits from her family. Here she in San Angelo with her daughter Tiffany, son-in-law Hiram, and Dave and Cheryl Ellringer

That's just how she was with everyone; she was the perfect mama bear. She loved her family fiercely and she defended them just as fiercely. There was no distance too far for her to travel to be amongst those she held near and dear. She was there to pick you up when you fell, and would make sure to support you through the lesson that caused the stumble, be it physical, mental, emotional, or motivational. Her family also didn't just extend to her children and her husband; once you were in Carol's orbit, you became her family. Her hugs where real hugs too. None of this pat on the back, barely embracing stuff; if you hugged Carol, you were in it until she decided the hugging was complete. For such a small woman, she had an incredibly strong hug. Carol might have lived most of her life in Texas, but the love that we all bore her from all over the country surrounded her always. The amount of cards she got when I was there over the summer was so heart warming. So many people sending their well wishes, and she read every single one. When she got too tired to read them herself, we read them to her while she sat in her chair with a smile on her face, no doubt thinking of fond memories with the person who had sent the card. I can only hope she knew how loved she was, and how greatly she will be missed.

Carol trimming Bob's mustache when he was in the hospital. He was grousing, but you can still see the love in his eyes. He loved her so very much. 

This year will be the first year that I won't get a Christmas card from Carol. She had faithfully kept up with all my address changes over the years as I moved from place to place. I remember the gut punch I had when the first Christmas card from her arrived after her husband Bob had passed away, and it was just her name on the card instead of both their names. Now I won't get one at all. I thought of that after she had passed and we found some Christmas cards that she had written out; they were addressed and stamped and ready to go. In a moment of morbid humor, my cousin Clint and I briefly discussed dropping them in the mailbox (we didn't, in the end, figuring that might be a little too traumatizing for the recipients). I think the takeaway is that she had such a huge network of people that maybe she just tinkered around with writing Christmas cards all year round. Carol wanted to celebrate everyone she held near and dear as much as she could. When she found out Simon and I had gotten married, she immediately got her address book out and wrote down our date, both the actual date and our observed date, as neither Simon nor I can remember the actual date and choose to celebrate on April 1st, because that's a day we can both remember. We found her address book and pocket calendar after she had passed, and it was full of all the names and places and significant dates of all her important people. 

Carol with Tiffany on her wedding day, son Clint and granddaughter Katrina

A friend of mine told me a while back that when someone dies, all their stories die with them. A part of me broke inside a little bit when I heard that, because it's so very true. In June, when a bunch of our family rallied to Texas after Carol's diagnosis, we recorded her telling stories about her life. It was such a special time to be there and hear her telling us about some of the things she'd done, the places she'd been, the people with whom she'd spent her time. Her children and family will cherish those recordings for years to come. I found myself wishing I had done that with my grandparents before they passed; what great stories they must have had about growing up without electricity or cars, serving in World War 2, the places they went and the experiences they had; all of those stories died with them, and photographs are notoriously silent. If sharing stories with Carol has taught me anything, it's that we should be recording the experiences of those we love, and it doesn't have to be at the end of their lives. You can do it any time. This isn't a shameless plug for StoryWorth, but if you have the ability or the desire to do it, please do...it's a great interactive way for your friends and families to tell their stories, and you just might hear some you haven't heard before. I have a book on my shelf with years and years of some of my mom's stories, and I cherish it. The StoryWorth service asked her questions that I probably wouldn't have thought to ask, and she was very candid with her stories. Some were hard to read, some were sad, some were funny, some were heartwarming, but the important takeaway is that I have them, and I get to keep them.

Simon and I brought Carol Arby's when we visited in June...it was her favorite, and the Arby's in San Angelo had closed. She was stoked. :)

I think Carol would be happy with this writing. She'd be proud of me regardless, and were she here, she'd correct me on a few things that maybe I got wrong or could be worded differently. She had this funny little look that she'd get on her face when she was sharing a private joke...she'd pucker up her lips, scrunch up her nose, and give you a wide-eyed side-eye to let you know what she thought without saying a single word, followed by a huge knowing smile. I got that look a lot in her final days, mostly because I had trouble switching between niece-mode and nurse-mode, but she was right there letting me know. Even in her disagreement, I could still feel her love. I'm going to miss that silly little look, but most of all the woman who wore it so effortlessly that it made us love her all the more. What I wouldn't give to have her throw me that sassy little look just one more time. Until we meet again.   

Life at the Bedside: Stepping Away

As some of you know, I quit my job as a nurse last month. It was a long time coming, and if you’d read my blog from Nurse’s Week this year, there might have been an indication that this was coming sooner rather than later. In truth, when I wrote that blog back in May, I really hadn’t been contemplating leaving the profession at all, but had instead been trying to find ways to come to terms with what the nursing profession and the healthcare environment in general had become, and what the future might hold for me. Between the reality of being understaffed, overworked, under-supported, and underpaid, to the murmurings of administrators behaving badly on company money and time, I found myself thinking more and more like maybe I need to find another avenue of nursing that might be a better fit, or maybe I just need to step away for a while.

I was originally hoping that maybe I could find a way to dissociate from all the things that made my job so challenging, and focus instead on all the things that I was still able to do, which was provide the best care I could for the patients who came my way. The problem with that is that I’m horrible at dissociating…from anything, really. I’m an empathic person who is quick to respond to the world around me, but I also can’t help but respond emotionally, much to my detriment. Every barrier, be it real or imagined, started to become a personal affront to the work I was trying to do. When the going got tough, I shouldered most of that on myself, and the feelings of self-loathing, blame, and guilt that came along with me feeling unable to provide the care that I believed the patients deserved became too much to bear. I found myself envying my fellow nurses who were able to just put their heads down and do the work, moving ever closer to their financial and personal goals. It’s not to say that they care any less than I do, or that they are okay with a subpar work environment, they’re just able to process it differently and are more effectively able to remain and sometimes thrive in the workplace. I wasn’t thriving; I was withering away, and it was affecting not just my work life, but it was leaching into my personal life as well.

In June of this year, my aunt Carol, who lived in Texas, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. I went out to support her after her diagnosis, and she decided not to treat the cancer; she wished to live however long she had left as normally as she could, and when it came close to the end, wished to have a comfortable death with minimal suffering. I told her that I would come back when her condition worsened, and I would help her in any way that I could to give her the death that she desired. Because the cancer was so aggressive, she declined quickly and within a month I was back in Texas. I had been in contact with my nurse manager about Carol’s situation, and she was incredibly understanding and was agreeable to let me out of my travel nurse contract so I could take as much time as I needed to provide care for Carol, but to also take care of myself afterwards. I was incredibly grateful for her patience and understanding. I'm currently writing blogs about both my experience providing care for Carol, and about her life and what she meant to me and those she loved. Stay tuned.  

Prior to me leaving my job to head to Texas, I had three incredibly challenging shifts at the hospital, one of which had me in tears at the nurse’s station. Not because I was being challenged beyond my expertise, but because there was a simultaneous compounding of unmanageable events. I won’t get into specifics, but as my fellow nurses can attest, there are certain things that can absolutely make or break a shift. For three shifts in a row, everything just felt irrevocably broken, and not only was I struggling, I didn’t feel supported when I asked for help. Thank goodness on my very last shift as everything was falling apart, the fellow nurses working with me on the floor were able to step up and help me. And let me just say, any nursing assignment that requires 4 extra healthcare personnel in addition to the assigned nurse is a complete failure of the system. Unfortunately, instead of those responsible taking the blame for being the failure, the feeling of failure falls to the nursing staff, and truth be told, I am beyond sick and tired of feeling like a failure.

Ah, the COVID days...

So I left. The relief from stepping away was instantaneous, but somewhat short-lived. Immediately after quitting my job, I was on my way to Texas to care for my aunt, which ended up being more challenging than I was prepared for. While I was incredibly honored that she trusted me to help her and her family in her final days, caring for a person in their home is very different than caring for a person in the hospital. I found myself again feeling like a failure, feeling like I didn’t know what I was doing while still trying to do my best to care for this person who I’ve known and loved for my entire life. How in the world I ever thought I could just walk into that situation and be completely okay with it is beyond me, especially when you take into account that I was grieving the loss of my career, while simultaneously caring for and pre-grieving the loss of my aunt. I guess you truly don’t know what you don’t know. I just wasn’t prepared for the mental and emotional load of it all, but with the help of my cousins and the support of our extended family, we were able to care for her and give her as comfortable a death as possible. Now that I’ve had some time to process, I realize how hard it was to take all that on, and that I’m not a failure, and that I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat. I learned that people who take on the care of a dying family member are some of the strongest and most badass people out there. The fact that there are people out there who have never had a career in healthcare who boldly take on the huge responsibility of keeping a loved one comfortable in their final days is incredible and so very brave, it truly is.

So, in the month of July, I walked away from my career of 21 years, and I lost my beloved aunt to cancer all in the span of a week, and up until the past couple weeks, I haven’t really given myself the space or the time to process or grieve. There’s been a lot of anger, sadness, shame, defeat, and hopelessness. But there’s also been so much support and love from my friends and family. I had a friend read this blog prior to posting it, and while I admitted that some of it was pretty harsh (parts that I’ve since removed), she really helped me so much by pointing out that it’s okay to be angry and to process in my own way, but I should be mindful of trying to be productive with my processing. I’m so thankful that she was able to check me like that, because I definitely needed it, and I feel better taking those more negative parts out of this blog. She helped me to realize that dwelling on the negative aspects of my career while completely ignoring all the positives I left behind me and the ones standing in front of me wasn’t doing me a whole lot of good. I can grieve and I can process and I can be angry and sad and all the things, but I still need to move on; I truly just needed someone to tell me that, and to tell me it in such a way that I knew it came from a place of love and support. There are definitely thoughts and feelings that I truly need to let go, and my nursing career doesn’t owe me an apology. My nursing career actually gave me a really good life, and overall, I’m thankful for it and my energy will be best served by focusing on gratitude and moving forward, not anger and looking back.

I don’t feel like I’m done with nursing, but I do think I’m probably done with the bedside hospital setting. I just don’t think that’s a healthy environment for me anymore, and I’m learning to be okay with that. There’s a part of me that feels like I need to jump right back into a job in nursing, but there’s a bigger part of me telling me to wait, to give myself time, that nursing jobs are out there and they’re not going anywhere. I’d been in contact with the director of a home hospice provider in Flagstaff, and had tentatively set up a time to shadow one of the nurses, and I found I just wasn’t excited about it. I was dreading it, in fact. I had to keep telling myself that shadowing isn’t a commitment, and that maybe once I saw what home hospice was all about, I could either pursue it if I liked it or cross it off my list if I didn’t. The idea that maybe I would be wasting everyone’s time if I didn’t take the job was giving me anxiety, like I would be letting myself and everyone else down all over again. The fact of the matter is, I don’t think I’m currently in the right head space to give a fair assessment to any job pertaining to nursing right now. Everything is still too raw, and to be completely honest, I think I’d focus far too much on the negative without giving myself the space to see the positive. When I go back to nursing, it has to be with open eyes and an open heart. I need to be able to give myself to my patients again, and right now I just don't feel like I can. 

At some point, I would love to work with people again, and I still would love to someday have a career in hospice, palliative care, or grief support/bereavement. I have in my head that I would like to re-brand death. I want to provide a space physically, mentally, and emotionally where people can come either together or individually to talk about death. Maybe over coffee and snacks, low lighting and soft music. I’d love to provide a space where people feel comfortable sharing, and if they don’t want to share, I’d like them to feel comfortable just listening and being in the presence of others who are going through a similar experience. I’d love to ask the hard questions about what has influenced people’s opinions about death, and give people the space to freely express the way death has impacted their lives. We all die, and I think it’s important that we not only acknowledge this fact, but we should also feel safe and supported talking about it. I want to do that for people, I just don’t know how. Well, I should clarify…I don’t know how to monetize it so that it’s something I could make a living off of and fully devote myself to. The reality is that I still need to make money, and if I’m employed elsewhere and doing death work on the side, then I don’t have the capacity to put my full time and energy into it. I’m hoping to use this time away from nursing to really dig into this, and find out how I can help people comfortably grieve not just for others, but for themselves as well. Maybe that means going back to school, maybe that means getting involved with a community grief support program, maybe that means working in hospice for a while to see if/how I could help support the grief work while backing off on the hands-on caregiving. 

So there it is. I’m starting a job at my friend’s plant store in Flagstaff later this week, and I’m super excited about that, more excited than I’ve been about a job in a long time. It's been over 2 decades since I've worked in retail, and there's a big part of me that's really looking forward to flexing those muscles again. I probably mentioned this in a prior blog, but a few years ago, I found myself getting very into house plants. I amassed over 50 plants during the first year of the pandemic, and while in the beginning there was a lot of plant death as I figured things out, I still have some that have continued to thrive despite my initial ineptitude. Don't get me wrong, plant death will continue to happen (I’m actually killing a plant right now; not on purpose, obviously), but I’m embracing the learning process. I’m really excited to connect with other plant people, to hear what’s worked, what hasn’t, and to hopefully pass along helpful information. There is so much research out there about how getting our hands in the dirt makes us feel connected to this earth, and I think right now that’s what I need. I need to get dirty, and I need to see things grow. I need to see that my influence can bring about something positive, and learn to not see myself as a failure, even when things don’t turn out the way I want them to. I need to work where the stakes are lower, an environment where a misstep doesn’t result in humanly harm. Not that I’ll just flippantly move on when a plant is doing poorly or dies, but the emotional burden will be less, and I need that so badly right now.

A special shout-out to my Flagstaff girls, to Simon, to Amy (who will always be a Flagstaff girl to me), to my cousins Clint, Tiffany, and Katrina who were by my side in Texas, to my family and friends who have reached out or sent me funny videos. It takes a village, and I’m realizing I'm a member of the very best village. Thanks from the bottom to the tippy top of my heart. 

Life at the Bedside: Reflections on Nurses' Week

Well, another Nurses' Week has come and gone, and here I am, thinking about what being a nurse means to me. After a whirlwind 3 years of going from healthcare heroes to conspiracy deniers/theorists to vaccine pushers to overpaid, greedy money-grubbing travel nurses...to say I'm spent would be an understatement. This isn't the light-hearted, butt-baring prose that frequents my blog, but it's real, it's raw, and it's important. So bear with me, and know that I don't spend all of my time in this headspace, but I'm here right now, so here we go. 

I was taking care of several elderly patients recently, and I was busy...there were multiple things happening all at once: call lights were dinging, bed alarms were going off, IV pumps were beeping, blood sugars were low, blood pressures were high, pain was present in broken hips and pleuritic chests, bladders were full and bellies were hungry. I was frustrated, trying to best manage my time, and of course, there just wasn't enough help. There never is. I found myself getting impatient with one of my elderly ladies as I helped her to the bathroom (because I was thinking of all the other things I had to do), and I just stopped and said to myself, "Stef, this woman is someone's grandma; you need to take the best care of her that you can because this little lady is very important to someone." I will get to why having to check myself like this at an hour into my shift is destroying my profession one self-talk at a time. My grandma was inarguably the most important person in my life. I miss her so, so much, and even though she's been gone for almost 13 years, I still mourn her like I lost her yesterday. It is devastating to me that I will never see her again while I walk this earth. I like the idea of seeing her again someday, maybe across the Rainbow Bridge, with my pugs Brie ("she has a V on her head!") and Cooper on her lap, Ladybird by her feet, all of them waiting for me to join them in whatever comes next. What a great thought. Side note: I don't really believe in heaven, but if there is one, I'm pretty sure the best people go wherever the dogs go. So as I was helping my little lady, I thought about all the nurses that had taken care of my grandma in the hospital in the later years of her life. I thought about how they treated her, if they were patient with her, if they thought of her as someone's grandma. I also wondered if she got the nurses who saw her as the time-consuming deaf little old lady in room 5 with stress incontinence who required 2 people to get her out of bed because she had compression fractures in her spine and it was painful for her to move, and wondered how they were going to get everything done with their other patients if they were having to help her to the toilet every hour. Did they ever think of their grandmas while they were taking care of mine? Were they patient and compassionate? Or were they short and frustrated? I'm sure she got both kinds of nurses, but I hope she got more of the former and less of the latter.

A funny hospital story about my grandma: she was hospitalized for a urinary tract infection, and Simon and I went to the hospital to visit her while she was there. Knowing that the staff was busy, I decided to help my grandma with some personal care. Grandma was so excited to see us that she continuously chatted away. She didn't even stop talking while she was brushing her teeth...there was toothpaste literally everywhere. I couldn't stop laughing. She was such a funny little old lady, and that teeth-brushing moment is one that I keep near and dear to me, always.  

When it comes to patient care, I wish I didn't have so much of my time tied up with bureaucratic nonsense. And by bureaucratic nonsense, of course I'm talking about charting. It's funny, I remember thinking that moving from paper charting to computer charting was going to streamline everything and I'd have so much more time to take care of my patients. Ha! If I could have only foreseen...not that it would have changed anything, it was just the way the healthcare world was going. Computer charting has become an epic time-suck. There are unlimited opportunities to add this metric and that metric to our required documentation. I was on a computer charting committee back in the day, back when I still felt like my opinion and input was valid, and I distinctly remember the day that we spent an inordinate amount of time with administrators and the IT guys debating over what word should be on the button indicating medication administration..."Given" or "Administered." I remember making eye contact with an ICU nurse who had been lured into the same committee, and we were both like, "What the f*ck are we even doing here?" Computer charting companies and the hospital admins can add row after row of things to document on...not because they're necessarily needed, but simply because they can. This is an oversimplification, of course, because hospital reimbursement drives a lot of the things we are required to document, but that's a tale for another time. In short, the more we chart, the more it looks like we're properly doing our jobs. We are required to chart on certain things hourly, and we're not allowed to copy/paste, even if nothing has changed. Funny enough, doctors are allowed to copy and paste their hospital notes, which leads to so much inaccurate information, but again, a story for another time. The impression seems to be that if we're manually charting everything, every single hour, then we're also doing everything that we're charting (manually charting even a few things on 5-6 patients every hour over the course of a shift doesn't leave a whole lot of time for patient care, by the way). Add to that the reality of different flowsheets not communicating with each other, and suddenly I'm double and triple charting the same thing in multiple places. Anyone can chart anything they want, let's be clear about that. Just because it was documented, doesn't mean it was done...it just means it was documented. Checking boxes and crossing T's and dotting I's, all so the upper admin can get page after page after page of whatever metrics they find most important at the time. The funny thing is, I'm not entirely sure how much they actually care about whether or not the work is being done, they just want it documented so it looks like it's being done. Whenever I've been pulled aside to discuss a discrepancy in my charting, it's never, "Did you do this thing?" It's, "Can you go back in and chart this thing [so it looks like you did it]?" They don't want to know if I did it or not, in fact, I think they'd rather not know, because if I didn't do it, then they have to do something about it; it's better for everyone if I just document that I did it, then no excuses or time consuming supplemental re-education are necessary. 

This is one of the reasons that nurses like me are leaving healthcare...because we just feel so awful about diverting time from actual hands-on care to sitting at a computer checking one more useless box. Does the patient sitting in diarrhea care that I documented that they were sitting in diarrhea? Do they care that I documented the color, the consistency, and the amount of their diarrhea? No! They would rather I spend my time at their bedside, keeping them clean and fresh and dry. They would rather have me there, listening to their stories and seeing them for the human beings that they are: people who have lived lives and gone places and seen things and done things, people who have families and pets and grandchildren, homes in the mountains and cottages on lakes. People who are scared, insecure, in pain, helpless, vulnerable, and lonely. These are human beings that we as nurses are caring for, and yet, the system is teaching us not to do too much extra care because we just don't have the time. I know that establishing patterns in patients' vital signs, bowel/urinary habits, etc and the interventions required to manage all of those things are important...the patients wouldn't be in the hospital if it wasn't important, but how do we create time to provide the important things to manage their bodies, while still providing care for their souls and their minds? Obviously if everyone's health issues could be solved by listening to stories and holding hands, those of us in healthcare would all find ourselves out of a job, but in the hospital setting, the mental and emotional aspect of care is sorely lacking, and that matters. It does.  

Truthfully, it is tearing me apart. I've been thinking about leaving the hospital setting for a while now, and last night I had the thought, "Well, who is going to be sweet to the little old ladies if I leave? Who is going to take my place?" That might sound like hubris to you, but I'm good at what I do. I know that. And it's not just because I've been a nurse for nearly 21 years, it's because I like people. I love people. I love getting that grumpy little old man to smile, I live for the moments when a patient tells me that they can't, and I show them that they can. I love holding hands, brushing hair, giving back rubs, rubbing lotion into dry skin, and sitting next to the bed, listening to a story. I absolutely love making them laugh...there is too little laughter in the hospital, and there needs to be more. I wish I had more time to do all of those things, because while they might sound trivial to some, they are so important to that patient lying there in the bed. On an average night, I find that making sure I've documented everything properly stresses me out more than the patient care does. God forbid I spend 5 minutes talking a patient through a scary moment of chest pain, because those are 5 minutes that are going to take away from the 15 minutes (at a minimum) that I'm going to spend documenting when the chest pain started, what I did, who I called, what they ordered, what medications I gave, what the follow-up was...all while simultaneously managing the care of my other patients. And yes, documentation is important, but it shouldn't be the most important. Caring for patients and making them feel safe and seen and heard should be the most important. 

Most days I come home from work defeated, feeling like I didn't make a difference. That I didn't have the time to make a difference because I was too busy documenting what I did to correct the "differences." I hope that my patients would tell you otherwise, but who is there to listen? Administrators are too busy running diagnostics to see which medications were given late, so they can post it on a spreadsheet in the employee bathroom for all to see with absolutely no context. And that's the thing...we get taken to task for things that happen in the hospital and no one bothers to ask us for context. To document all the context would take even more of my time away from the patient, so instead of documenting that I was sitting at the bedside of a patient, reassuring them that everything is going to be okay, that I'm going to do everything I can to get them a good night's rest and that I'll be there whenever they need me, the med is just given late. Sorry, not sorry...patient care comes first.  Someone getting a stool softener 15 minutes past the arbitrary administration time (seriously, who takes bowel care meds at 10pm anyway??) is hardly cause for public shaming in the restroom setting.

Long story short, I feel like I can't be the nurse I want to be because I'm too busy charting and bending over backwards to appease management when my energy and focus should be spent appeasing my patients. My shifts are consumed with phrases like, "Cover your ass!" and "If it isn't documented, it isn't done!" How about maybe we give nurses the benefit of the doubt and get rid of the notions that nurses are maliciously neglecting their patients? I know that there are nurses out there who probably shouldn't be in healthcare...in all my years as a nurse, I've come across a few who I would never, ever allow to lay a finger on a loved one of mine, but I truly think that those nurses are in the minority, and that most of us have the best of intentions, and that the system is failing both us and our patients. 

When I think about that Senator who made the quip about nurses playing cards at the nurses' station, I'd love to shove a deck of cards down her throat and up her ass and tell her to shuffle them. What an ignorant ass, and clearly someone who has spent zero time in the hospital setting, or doing any sort of research whatsoever into hospital culture before spewing her nonsense. The sad thing is, it isn't just she who feels that way. When a person walks onto a nursing unit and sees us all engrossed in our computers, (assuming we're not in a patient room), it literally looks like we're doing nothing, like we're surfing the web or shopping on Amazon. If the average person knew how much time I spend documenting on my computer versus the amount of time I spend providing patient care, I think they'd be shocked...it is in no way equal, nor is it favored towards patient care. When families call and try to get an update and it takes me too long to get to the phone, I'm not typically met with understanding, I'm met with hostility and impatience, as if I'm being neglectful to both them and their family member. When I gently try to impress upon them how busy I am, rarely am I met with sympathy or compassion. Maybe the next time I get push-back from a family member I will inform them that the administration doesn't find it prudent to provide us with sufficient staff to meet the needs of both the patients in the hospital and their family members outside of it, so I have to pick one. I have to pick the patient...I will always pick the patient.  

When I hear people in conversation making disparaging comments about nurses, I want to scream. I am smart! I have good instincts! I am college educated! And yes, I did my fair share of partying in college, but I did it alongside my fellow nurses and their now-husbands, who are engineers, some of whom are making life-saving cardiac pacemakers. We turned out just fine, and we're good at what we do. It is so hard to be a family member sitting at the bedside, thinking that everything is taking too long; trust me, I know. Imagine being  both a nurse and a family member sitting at the bedside, critiquing and questioning and wondering why everything is taking so long. I know why things take so long, and even I get frustrated. Healthcare is a messed up institution, and we can go so much farther by supporting each other, even when it's hard. I wish that things were different...I know they could be, but they're not and I think we're too far gone to turn the ship at this point. Healthcare is a business that profits off of human suffering...that's the unfortunate truth. I'm just here trying to do my best, one little old lady at a time.

So there it is. I wish I could say that I still love being a nurse, that it still fills my cup and that professionally, it's all I'll ever want to do. But I can't say that. The truth is, I do love being nurse, I just don't love the way I'm required to do it right now. I'm making some moves, putting out some ideas, and talking to a lot of people from different walks of life trying to figure out how and where I can do the most good, both for myself and for my patients. At 43 years old it's hard to think about starting over, but I think it's time. I still have so much of myself to give to the patients of the world, but I'm realizing that maybe the hospital setting isn't the best place for me mentally, physically, or emotionally to give it. 

Love to all my nurses and fellow healthcare workers out there...the ones who are just starting out and who are still excited...keep on rocking it, but please don't forget to take care of yourselves too. To all my fellow burnouts...I see you, I feel you, I'm here for you, I support you. For all the admins out there who are personally affronted by the way you're presented here, well, this is how you're seen by your subordinates. Do you care? Do better for your patients, your staff, and the community in general. We're all in this together...at least we should be. 

I'm okay, really, I am. It's just been a moment. This too, shall pass. Love to you all. Be gentle with yourselves. 

43 Times Around the Sun

Happy shrimp-and-grits birthday to me!!

Well, it's that time of year again...time for the birthday post. :)

43 this year! I actually forgot my own birthday this year, which is kind of funny, in a way. I had just spent a week in New Orleans with Simon and our friends Andy and Liz. It was a whirlwind of a trip where we walked at least miles a day in pursuit of some of the best and unique foods that the city had to offer. To say I over-indulged on multiple occasions would be an understatement. It wasn't until we had checked in for our first of two flights home and were sitting in the airport, coffee and breakfast sandwich in hand, that I opened up Facebook and saw all the birthday wishes. I turned to Simon and said, "Today is my birthday." We both just started laughing. And then Simon immediately felt bad that we didn't acknowledge the day of my impending birth at any point on our trip. You know, I'm okay with that. Sometimes (most times, actually) being the center of attention makes me feel weird. 

I've never been a person who was big into birthdays. They don't get me overly excited, they don't give me anxiety...most of the time, my birthday is just another day. Maybe that's part of aging, or maybe that's just me. I definitely have friends who celebrate their birthdays for the entire week of their birthday, and some even celebrate the entire month. I think we all just view our birthdays differently. 

I will say though, from the bottom of my heart, I absolutely loved the texts, Marco Polos, and Facebook birthday messages that I received yesterday. It made me feel so special to hear from people from all 43 years of my life: friends from all over the country, and even all over the world as I have multiple friends on international trips right now, who wished me a happy birthday from afar; family from here and abroad, the farthest away being my uncle Sy in Thailand; coworkers both current and former, from all over the country from my various jobs, some well over a two decades ago; classmates from high school and classmates from college; ex-boyfriends; a match.com date from over 15 years ago; neighbors from years past; friends-of-friends and family-of-family, some of whom I have yet to meet in person; and even birthday wishes from those random people that maybe I know and maybe I don't, who friended me on Facebook that had me wondering, 'who is this person?' Every single message was read and appreciated, and just know that hearing from all of you made me feel special. 

At the end of the day, it's so nice to be remembered and it's something that I personally don't do enough. Every year I say I'm going to get better about birthdays...sending messages, sending cards, sending texts, sending emails...and every year I fail. I just want to hold this feeling in my heart, this feeling that you've all given me on my birthday, and continue that for the rest of you. Because it's important. The day itself might not be important, but the connection between all of us is, and I want to pass that on as best I can, for as long as I can. 

Storyworth: February's Questions

 Yep, I'm behind. As per usual. Time to catch up!

What foods do you dislike? Have these changed over time?

For years, whenever I ate fresh salsa or random Hispanic foods, there was always this unpleasant flavor that I couldn't identify. It tasted to me like metal and the taste would hit at random and was so off-putting that I couldn't finish whatever it was that had caused my instant negative reaction. Those who know me best know that I am most definitely not a picky eater...I will try anything once, and if I don't like it, years later I will try it again just to see if my tastes have changed. Years ago, a friend of mine had a party at her house, and I was eating chips and salsa and tasted the unpleasant flavor. I isolated it to this teeny, tiny little green leaf. I wandered up to my friend who had made it, chip in hand, and demanded to know what that little green leaf was. "It's cilantro!" she happily exclaimed. Mouth before brain, I of course responded with, "This is what I hate!! It's taken me years to figure it out!!" She just laughed and wondered aloud who in the world hates cilantro. Turns out there's a lot of us cilantro haters, and thanks to some diligent scientists, it's been determined that our hatred of cilantro comes not from pickiness, but from a random genetic mutation. I always had a sneaking suspicion that I was some sort of mutant, but I had hoped that my mutant-ness would manifested itself in some sort of super power, rather than just an aversion to an otherwise innocuous plant. I have tried over the years to eat cilantro to lessen my aversion to it, and I recognize when I omit cilantro from dishes that it should be in, there is definitely a flavor profile missing. But try as I might, I don't think I'm ever going to like it. Tolerate it, yes, but like it, probably not. It's not my fault, it's in my DNA. 

Which sports did you play in high school?

In high school I played volleyball in the fall. I had been playing volleyball since the 7th grade, and around my sophomore year of high school I had established myself as quite the server. I never mastered the jump serve, but I could pound the ball over the net, barely a wobble as it cleared the net with barely an inch to spare. Unfortunately, once the coach discovered this, I spent the vast majority of our practices serving to the varsity team, and therefore didn't have much opportunity to develop many other useful skills. It got to the point that I had so little exposure to the actual game that I was rotated in to serve, then out again immediately once the serve switched to the other side. My Junior year I didn't make the varsity squad and spent the fall on the JV team, which was okay, but there weren't enough of us to make a team so we were always begging some of the varsity squad or the B-squad girls to play with us. Some did out of pity, but most the time we just played short and didn't do all that well. I still dressed for all the varsity games, and every now and again I'd get put in to serve, but it just wasn't the same. Senior year I tried out for the varsity squad again, knowing I probably wouldn't make the team, and of course I didn't. Not willing to spend another year on the JV team, I called it quits. It was then that a fellow volleyball teammate of mine approached me about trying out for the dance-line team for the the winter season. Being the farthest thing from a bouncy, bubbly cheerleader and having little to no flexibility to speak of, I don't know what possessed me to try out, but I did. I made the team. And you know what, it was a lot of fun. I wish that I had had the confidence to try out for the dance-line team years prior, because I really enjoyed it. I even helped choreograph a couple routines, which was a lot of fun. Of course I fell flat on my butt during the opening bars of one of the songs that I helped choreograph, but you'll have that. The song, ironically, was Wipe Out...hahaha! I remember the first time I was able to get into the splits...I was so proud of my inflexible self! I could only do it with my right leg forward and my butt cheeks barely grazing the floor, but I had made it! Such fun memories, and I'm so glad that I stepped outside of my comfort zone to try something that I otherwise would never in a million years been inclined to do. 

What is the farthest you have ever traveled?

Me with Frank, Lisa, Nicole, Siobhan, and Kerrie

I've been to Australia and Thailand, and I would have to say that Thailand was the farthest. I think it was 18+ hours of flying time total, not counting the layovers. By the time Simon and I had arrived in Thailand, we were so backwards on our circadian rhythms that it took us almost a full three days to finally switch over to the local time. We had the same issue on our return to the US, awake in the middle of the night, completely exhausted in the middle of the day. We tried so hard to flip back as quickly as possible, but it was a struggle. Thailand was amazing. We volunteered for a week an elephant sanctuary in Chiang Mai, and it was one of the neatest experiences of my life. There was a lot of poop shoveling, but we were shoveling with an amazing group of people, some of whom became life-long friends. Nothing solidifies a friendship like 10 pound elephant turds. The elephants were beautiful, some of them were sweet, some of them were not. We learned about the process that it takes to train an elephant to be safe around humans, and we learned very quickly that "train" is not the appropriate word; "abuse" is far more accurate and appropriate. Wild elephants are not like horses or dogs, they are not curious about humans nor do they want to interact with humans. They would much rather squish us than spend a single minute in our presence. Elephants are stolen from their herds as babies and horrifically abused for weeks to break their spirit. Many of them suffer from intense emotional, physical, and mental trauma...sometimes all three. Every single elephant at the park, outside of the ones who had been born there, had been traumatized. Many of them were scarred or disfigured, the vast majority arrived at the park emaciated and in poor health. Some of them were safe for us to be around, but many of them were not. Luckily when we were out working in the fields around the elephants, the guides at the park knew which ones to steer clear of. There was one moment when one of the guides scurried over to us, pointed to an elevated platform, and said, "We have to go up there, right now!" Several yards behind him was a massive female elephant with her ears sticking straight out, bee-lining towards us, nothing but business. So we ran to the platform and hung out up there until she had decided that she had sufficiently scared us off and returned to her herd. It was amazing to see the way the family units functioned. While there were no free-roaming males in the park (they are far too dangerous to be around, even for those who have extensive experience around elephants), there were several bands of females of various ages, and usually a couple babies. The adult females are called "nannies," and their job is just like it sounds...overseeing the care and safety of the babies. My favorite moments at the sanctuary were in the mornings...Simon and I always got up so early, and we would wander out to the elevated dining area, have a cup of tea, and watch the park wake up. We'd see the elephant families wander by as they made their way to the river to bathe, or out to the designated eating areas for breakfast. Then the water buffalo would wander by, the birds started to sing, the cats and dogs would wander by and find their way onto our laps for an early morning siesta. It was so peaceful, and so very special to have those quiet moments to ourselves. 

Mud bath...best day ever!!

There are a lot of elephant "sanctuaries" in the Chiang Mai area, but I chose Elephant Nature Park because they don't allow riding of the elephants, and are actually making moves to have their sanctuary be entirely hands-free, meaning no physical contact with any of the guests and volunteers. Being able to be so close to the elephants was so special, but I understand that our presence is actually quite stressful for most of the them. And truly, just getting to be near them, observing them from an elevated platform, watching them go about their lives, was still so very rewarding. If you are ever interested in volunteering at or visiting a sanctuary in Thailand, without a doubt I believe this place would be your best choice. 

If you could have as much money as you wanted, what would you do with it?

Well this just ties into the previous question. Without a doubt, I would travel. I would spend months in Europe riding the rails, eating all the things, soaking up all the World War II history that I could, as I've always had a special interest in it, probably because both of my grandpas served in that war. I would go to Ireland, Iceland, and England. I want to go back to Thailand, and to explore more of Asia. I would go on extensive road trips in the US, and stop at all the funny little points of interest along the way. I would finally ride in a hot air balloon, maybe multiple times over multiple cities in multiple countries. Maybe I'd even ride in a blimp, as there is one still operating in Europe for tourists. I can't remember how outrageous it is for a 45-minute ride, but if I had as much money as I wanted, maybe I'd just rent it for the entire day, or maybe even multiple days! I'd take some bike trips across Europe, and since I'd have all the money I wanted, I'd bring along a bunch of friends. I would go on river cruises in Europe, and maybe I'd even do one of the running cruises where at each port you get out and run a 5-10k. Maybe I'd go to culinary school, just to learn how to cook fancy. Or maybe instead of school, I'd just book one of those cooking cruises where you take cooking classes on the ship, then get out at port and let the real chefs make their local fare. Lots of eating, lots of traveling. That's what I'd do. Of course, one can't ignore the practical things like paying off the house, donating to charity, starting an animal sanctuary, funding a massive countries-wide spay/neuter initiative for dogs and cats, etc...traveling just makes for a better fantasy. :)

And that's it for February's questions. I've had a lot of nervous energy lately as Simon and I search for jobs, waiting in limbo to find out where we're going to go. Being someone who likes to pack up everything far in advance and plan for all the things that I might need (whilst also bringing all the things that I won't), I've been spinning my wheels these past few weeks because where we end up determines what we bring. Are we going somewhere warm? Cold? Far? Near? Staying with friends? Renting our own place? So many uncertainties, and I know everything will work itself out, but in the meantime I need to find productive ways to manage my energy, and this was a good way to do it. So yeah, more to come. :)